Republicans Take on NLRB

Congressional Republicans are demanding the National Labor Relations Board produce a raft of documents concerning the board’s complaint against Boeing Co. and other decisions the lawmakers say overstep the board’s authority.

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), along with several Republicans on the committee, wrote to NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon to demand documents linked to the Boeing complaint and union election laws in Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

The NLRB’s Boeing complaint seeks to force the company to move its newly built production line in South Carolina to Washington state, a remedy pushed by union members who alleged Boeing built the nonunion plant in South Carolina in retaliation for their past strikes.

An NLRB suit against Arizona challenges the legality of a state constitutional amendment that requires secret-ballot elections before a company can be unionized, and claims the state can’t override a federal law that gives workers the option of the so-called card-check method of organizing, which unions prefer because of its ease. The NLRB has said it plans to file a similar suit against South Dakota, and has investigated union election laws elsewhere.

“In the current climate, every regulatory action is a potential parking brake on job creation and economic growth,” Mr. Issa said in the letter to the NLRB. He and his colleagues requested a long list of information by May 27, including call logs and emails between the general counsel, the NLRB, Boeing and the Machinists union as well as documents gathered in the probe of state union election laws.

Other requests for information are also pending.

Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R., Minn) and Mr. Issa, wrote to NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman earlier request documents in an NLRB case known as Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile and the United Steelworkers. The issue is whether a group limited to certified nursing assistants is an appropriate bargaining unit at the center.

Business groups and Republicans are concerned the board will rule for the union, and then apply the so-called mini-bargaining unit concept to other industries, making it easier for unions to organize.

On Friday, Republican members of the Education and the Workforce Committee wrote a letter to Mr. Solomon, saying: “Taken together, your actions threaten future economic growth and job creation and reflect an unsavory culture of union favoritism. We demand you cease your bureaucratic activism immediately and restore objectivity that is essential to the effectiveness and credibility of the General Counsel’s office.”

Democrats are fighting back. Rep. George Miller (D., Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Friday asked Mr. Kline to suspend his document request.

“The Board should be subjected to proper oversight. But the Committee must be careful not to misuse its oversight authority to influence, or risk the appearance of improperly influencing, the outcome of pending cases,” Mr. Miller wrote to Mr. Kline.

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